Tag Archive for 'guitar'

Day 3: Regroup

Published
by
jk
on September 14, 2008
in Personal, Project Ideas and Web Development
. Comments

After a normal sleep cycle, I returned to my computer to start cracking.

Of course, life threw its usual curveballs. After church, I had realized that my printer was being wonky. I also realized that NewEgg’s return policy on broken items sucks (you have to pay for shipping for sending it back), which makes me not want to order from them ever again unless it’s something like an.. xbox live 12+1 month card. (Which I didn’t get from them, because buy.com has it better. DO IT.) I’m probably continue to order from Amazon… I love everything about this company, from Prime down to its amazing return policy.

That took a while, then I had a couple hours of fun on the guitar as well as the 360. Eh, it was bound to happen.

Productivity

Then I buckled down. I realized all the physical needs of a human being, including sleeping and eating, really gets in the way of doing some productive work. I worked on and am still working on organizing all the web “properties” I have. I’m talking email addresses to AIM screen names to… you guessed it, domain names. Yesterday night, I did something I should have done a while back.

I finally bought joshk.im. Currently, I’m beta testing something called SweetCron, which is perfect for the purpose of that site. I have this strange feeling this might be a project I look forward to committing some changes to. Yes, even though it’s PHP… but it’s so well written! So pretty! I’ve never seen CodeIgniter code before, and it looks very very clean. I’m only used to seeing the insanity that is Symfony. It might just be that the guy who’s writing this thing, Yong Fook, is quite good. It was interesting to find out that SweetCron was going open source just as I found his blog a couple months ago. I really do hope for great things, if he’s reading this.

But alas, I may do something else with my newly acquired shiny domain name. I’m fresh out of ideas at this point, but I really wanted it to be a site for just that.

So What’s The Next Project?

I’m still figuring this out. I hope to have a list of my requirements for this project. Here’s a preliminary list:

  • Must not depend on advertising as the main stream of revenue
    • Basically comes down to freemiums or charge per use.
  • Must use Rails (if I’m doing a web project)
    • This is to learn Rails, btw… I’m not saying Rails is the end all for web projects.
  • Must be doable by “myself”
    • I’m sure I’ll be hitting up people left and right for help, but largely, it has to be my own.
    • It could be a source of pride, but I need to make sure I can do something on my own.
  • Must not neglect health of body and mind
    • This is like… uber important. Must maintain some kind of healthy habits.
  • Must blog daily progress reports, like this one
    • Accountability: So people can call me out. Important thing is to stay truthful.
    • You’re going to see lots of FAIL on this blog starting from… before this blog started to the day I die. I hope to see more WINs in the days to come, though.
    • Maybe, possibly, someone else is trying to do something like I’m doing. Maybe by doing this, I can find someone else who’s trying to do it his or her own way.

Sidepoint: Blogging Schedule

So I’m looking back on February 2008’s posts, and it seems like I stopped blogging like a madman after I found Twitter. Then this blog turned into, for lack of a better phrase, a Twitter archive. But before then, when I actually contributed to the world with some meaningful posts on the web… ugh… 2.0 market and on life in general, I would have multiple posts in various stages of completion.

I’m back at that stage. I have screenshots and halfway finished posts all over the place. I may need to slow down a bit, but I feel so energized.

I want to have these daily blog entries about the status of the “project”, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be doing some other random updates along the way. I have a feeling something about Rock Band 2 is going to get posted. Effing Braid needs to get a good review also. So many lovely post ideas…

Completely Random

Man, what the heck did I do with all this time I’m using up for the blog? I really have no idea. Must have been watching and playing things… Hmm. If I could have tracked all that lost time… but really, what’s the point then? What’s the point of being meta with things that you can’t change if you’ve already changed and are looking back?

Ah, the meta-life post. [Creates a new draft] I’ve deleted and rewritten this post so many times, physically, electronically, and mentally. ARGH.

It Has Come To My Attention…

Published
by
jk
on September 8, 2008
in Personal
. Comments

…That a certain someone thinks I don’t update as much as I should. It’s quite the truth: I desire the posting insanity. But these days, time is being spent on a lot of less meta-y things, to the point where recalling past events is becoming a chore.

And in some cases, this is good. It’s so good that past issues that don’t matter as much are being forgotten. I finally feel human.

But going back to the reasons for the delay…

Dean, a “young” “old” friend (@Dean: Pwned.) from college is back on campus and is living with me for the rest of the semester as he prepares for life anew in a far away, magical land. Okay, he’s applying for grad school elsewhere. I’m having a great time catching up, as well as making some new amazing memories. I just need to get a camcorder to record the memories that are being made currently… I definitely feel my directorial debut coming up soon… as soon as everything else I want to get done gets accomplished.

Oh, and that same kid is learnin’ me some Mandarin, while in return, I try to teach him some of my broke Korean. I had given up on even trying to learn Mandarin, this amazingly rich but difficult language, but I hope to try and learn a few bits here and there. I hope that one day I’ll be able to just understand the language: I don’t think I’ll be able to speak it. Ever. Intonations scare the crap out of me.

My passion for music has flared up again. Rock Band definitely lit a fire underneath my desire to “grow” as a “drummer”, and so in about a week and a half, I should be well on my way to diving further into that world with Rock Band 2 and the Ion Drum Rocker. The love of guitar has also increased this past week, and I hope to continue to ride this wave until it settles again, just like last time. And I’ve got Matt to thank for this one. So much to learn, it’s crazy.

Dean & Matt - The Two Catalysts

Dean & Matt - The Two Catalysts

And finally, the web development projects. It’s going slow. I pick it up from now and then, but I still don’t even have the wireframe diagrams down. This sucker is getting harder and harder by the second, and I’m not even adding any features. I feel like I have a general concept of the Models, but it’s getting crazy when I add the “Spec” Model. More on this, hopefully later.

And the catalyst in this arena, is the same kid that’s prodding me to write this freaking post in the first place, Jong-Sun.

Wait, hold up. Is this a modified list? These posts are getting kinda boring.

I know. If you don’t know me in real life, this is completely irrelevant. I guess if you really wanted to learn more about this random kid you found through a Google search, you could.

And even if you do, it’s really not that exciting. I just sit in front of screens all day long, with a short break at the gym, followed by more sitting in front of screens.

Moar Content Plz

But these posts are so easy to write… I got like 4 hours of sleep yesterday, and I’m not really feeling the argumentative Josh Kim coming out to pontificate. And that tends to be the case.

Hmm… some delicious content… where are you? I get angry at enough things, but it seems like whenever I go back to the keyboard, I forget… or my wrists/forearms hurt so much that I don’t really feel like putting to words.

Podcast? Videoblogging? I don’t know. That may be overkill.

I hope that one day the content will just seep out of me and be caught by this blog. When that day comes again, I hope you’ll be back.

Now I’m going to bed. So frickin’ tired.

The Problem With These Posts

These posts start with a point. Then it goes somewhere else. If I’m really tired, I won’t edit this and just shoot this out into the World Wide Web.

Now I’m getting caught with singing along Tenacious D’s “Wonderboy”. Figures.

And so ends yet another haphazardly put together post.

Or was it?

Dang it, I’m tired. I’m not looking over the last 2nd half of this post.

Let Me Try This Again, Part 3.1: Entertainment

Published
by
jk
on May 13, 2008
in Personal
. Comments

This is what I do these days to wind down from a day’s work. And a night’s work. Now that I think about it, I “waste” a lot of time. Hmm.

Music: Electric Guitar

Yes. The fake and the real kind.

Guitars AND Vaccuum.

I am also known to rock the vacuum from time to time. See the TV exploding? It’s because of the vacuum Star Power .

Starting out with the songs that I know all too well from Guitar Hero 3 (such as “When You Were Young” by The Killers, “Reptilia” by The Strokes, and “My Name Is Jonas” by Weezer), I’ve begun to play around with the tabs. It’s good fun.

  • Money invested
    • Real Guitar: $99 for amp. ~$40 for cable, picks, strings, and tuner.
    • Fake Guitar: $90 for guitar and game (the other set was a present for Derek, but I get to keep it around until he gets a Wii)

I’m thankful that Derek had a electric guitar that he wasn’t using. Or I might have invested a bit more.

Art: Wacom Bamboo Tablet

Wacom Bamboo Tablet

I love user interface devices. One of the many reasons why I got the Wii was to get that delicious Wiimote.

With this tablet, I’m going to start maybe possibly drawing a few things. It’s going to be deathly useful for drawing diagrams on the computer, as well as just using it as an alternative mouse input. I might finally start up that web comic I’ve been wanting to do for so long. I make no promises.

Ink.app isn’t that great, however. I’d recommend against using this for handwriting recognition.

  • Money invested
    • $67.62: Money going to good use. For the blog and elsewhere.

Actual “Waste” of Time: Video Games

As a child, I was always told that video games were a waste of time. I don’t think I’ll ever fully be able to shake this stigma. However, I’m slowly but surely realizing that I will probably be gaming until the day I die.

Like reading a good book (I haven’t done that in a while), listening to a great song (what are these “CD”s or physical media you speak of?), or watching a great movie (I still haven’t seen Iron Man, and no, I don’t know why), certain games will enter into the general populace. In my opinion, this hasn’t happened yet, and so I’m okay with having this slightly wrong view on video games. When the “public” thinks that games are a great way to enhance hand-to-eye coordination, increase motor skills, enjoy people’s company through online play without any concern to geography, strengthen real relationships, supplement actual workout routines, improve creativity, bring about relaxation, diminish tension…

Moving along. Hope to finish this two part of the third part of the series tomorrow. With a commentary on the conundrum I’m having with Rock Band and the Wii.